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Top 10 Tips for creating a Modern Garden
Smooth, sleek and contemporary is a top contender for the most coveted gardens style in Chris’ Free Garden Design service. This style can be adapted to any size garden, environmental conditions and can incorporate other garden styles in the design! We’re talking modern tropical, modern coastal or even modern cottage! But what elements actually make a modern or contemporary garden? This can be the part that makes designing your own modern garden tricky. So below we’ll go over some of the design elements Chris goes through in his contemporary garden designs.
Andrew Stark Landscape design with cloud pruned Japanese Maple that seem to float above a bed of Asiatic Groundcover Jasmine
Top 10 Tips for creating a Modern Garden
- Simple lines and form
- Geometry and Balance
- Functional spaces – bringing indoor outdoor
- Plain and pastel colours
- Simplistic textures
- Lighting
- Architectural plants are a thing!
- Garden features – sculptures, ornamental pots and water
- Patterns and repetition
- Avoid fads!
If you need more advice on how to create a modern garden, we can assist you with tips, tricks or even a full tailormade garden design with Chris. Book one here!
1. Simple lines and form
Seen here are pleached Aristocrat Ornamental Pears that act as a divider between rooms in the garden
Simplicity is key in a contemporary garden design. You don’t want to over crowd or clutter the garden, creating too much busy-ness. Modern gardens tend to have simple easy repetitive lines and shapes such as square, raised garden beds, all the same colour and texture and shape, the only variance being their height or length. Soft, rounded edges can also be used but it is paramount they are even, smooth and almost blend in with the surrounds.
2. Geometry and Balance
Beautiful table top pleached London Plane trees above a low growing groundcover with Buxus ‘English Box’ hedging and topiary
Geometric shapes and lines don’t work unless they are balanced with the surrounding spaces. Geometry is precision work and is what makes the garden as a whole pleasing to the human eye. We can often tell when the lines of a garden bed or wall are incorrect and it’s so distracting! This also applies to the placement of objects and shapes in a design. It can be too colour heavy on one side of the design or not enough of a certain texture, which makes the whole feel of the are feel weird. This is when balance is usually off!
3. Functional spaces – bringing indoor outdoor
Medium hedges help define spaces. Add a splash of colour and scent from some English Lavender
An element of the modern garden that isn’t considered until suggested by the designer is that of a functional space that joins the inside with the outdoors. This can be in the form of an outdoor living area or outdoor kitchen.
Retaining walls and planters can double as seats with carefully designed indented benches that meld seamlessly into the geometric design. Modern designs will generally have very deliberate and useful design elements, no questionable or confusing sections with unknown functions!
4. Plain and pastel colours
Classic example of mass planting or drift planting. Here we have Verbena bonariensis, Blue Fescue, Santolina Cotton Lavender, Salvia such as ‘Sensation Blue’ Salvia and Miscanthus grasses
Nothing says modern like soft stone colours, charcoals and very light pastels. The colours of retaining walls, pavers, steps and buildings are often subdued so they don’t distract or detract from the plants of the main feature. This is also applied to the plants used. Green & White is a very common colour scheme for a modern garden as it is subdued and simple, no one plant necessarily stealing the show with a mess of colour. When colour is used, it’s applied en-masse, large drifts or rows of the same colour planted together to great effect. Good examples of this are simple green hedges, large, swathes of green or silver groundcovers, and blocks of lavenders, fescues or salvias.
5. Simplistic textures
A wonderful use of grasses contrasting against modern planters. Here we have aStandard Acacia ‘Limelight’, Cycads at the top, Dianella ‘Cassa Blue’, Lomandra ‘Tanika’ , Acacia ‘Micro Matt’ and Gardenia florida on either side at the front.
Along with your simple colours, simple textures must also be used. Generally you won’t want any strongly patterned textures such as red brick or paisley confusing the area. The plants will usually create enough textural contrast and just require a simple backdrop or border to shine against. There’s no need to remove everything that might conflict with this tip! Bricks and tiles can easily be painted over to create a simplicity.
6. Lighting
Outdoor lighting not only brightens your backyard but can highlight a feature, draw your attention to elements of interest or set the mood. There are many outdoor lighting options available but remember to keep it simple so no leadlight lamps or spotlights!
7. Architectural plants are a thing!
The structural forms of the Blue Chalk Sticks
It’s no doubt about it, some plants have really striking foliage and form, becoming almost an architectural feature in themselves. Such plants as Agave, Senecio ‘Blue Chalk Stick’ or Gymea Lily have strong shapely foliage that draws the eye and contrasts against almost any other plant or building. Other, what you might call standard style foliage plants such as the hedging varieties (Buxus ‘English Box’ or Murraya ‘Orange Jessamine’), look almost nondescript by themselves. BUT! When trimmed into a strong box hedge with simple straight lines or perfectly symmetrical topiary balls, it makes them an eye-catching contrasting feature yet not to ‘out there’ for the contemporary garden. And if the geometric lines get too much, soften your edges with a mass planting of Poa ‘Tussock Grass‘ or Myoporum ‘Fine Leaf’ groundcovers.
8. Garden features – sculptures, ornamental pots and water
There is room for some of the standard garden ornaments but once again keep it simplistic, minimal and neat. This isn’t the garden to have a hoard of gnomes scattered about! A single large urn with a Topiary Buxus Ball or trailing Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ groundcover can make a beautiful, timeless feature and breaks up the landscape. This is also the type of garden where the complementary geometric or fluid shapes of contemporary sculptural art really shine. Artists such as David Harber create works that reflect the environment in which they are placed and truly add a finishing touch to the garden space.
If ornaments and artwork aren’t you thing, then consider the sound, movement and tranquillity that a water feature can add to your garden. Dispel the dated ideas of the cottage fishpond or the Japanese Koi and gravitate toward the the sculptural forms of a spherical water feature or wall of water. Remember to keep your simple and timeless shapes!
9. Patterns and repetition
Reed grasses emerging from the water with topiary and border Buxus ‘English Box’ hedging.
Now we know we have said to stay away from strong patterns on your walls, pavements and garden features but patterns are still subtly prevalent in your planting and structural work. We’re not necessarily talking about planting a colourful alternating pattern of vibrant colours. Here we are referring to the repetition of the same colour and shape. Think of the pattern your hedges may create. Two layers of box hedging in a square shape is a simple yet effective pattern. The repetition of the same size and colour pavers as a walkway through a neat lawn is a subtle and well balanced pattern. A continual colour, texture or simple pattern that looks good in all seasons holds the garden together.
10. Avoid fads!
The tropical look created by the broad leaves ofCordyline ‘Rubra’, Cordyline ‘Early Morning Diamond’, Cordyline ‘Pink Diamond’ and Cordyline ‘Negra’, with the colourful foliage of the low growing, mass planted Rhoeo ‘Moses in the Cradle’
We all have the temptation to add a busty Greek goddess or a Tiki Bar into the garden because we’ve seen them in the latest magazines, reality TV show or the neighbours bragging about theirs. But remember – these fads age, badly! The key to the modern garden is to keep it modern! This garden style doesn’t age, instead it maintains its style and grace throughout the decades.
Plants to use in a modern, contemporary garden
